A shame, for sure. What? You thought I’d be happy? I am, to a certain extent, yet I’m rather perplexed why she had to plead to anything at all to get this nightmarish ordeal to end. Rick Green, who has been championing her cause, has the details:

Amero agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Amero, who has been hospitalized and suffers from declining health, also surrendered her teaching license.

Judge Strackbein ordered a new trial over a year and a half ago, in June of 2007 (yes, it has been that long). So what the heck has been going on since then? I suspect the State got another expert to review the logs and investigate the computer, but 18 months?

No, what’s closer to the truth, I suspect, (and evidenced by the surreptitious manner in which this case was resolved) is that the State was embarrassed publicly and nationally and closed its eyes tight and clenched its teeth and hoped and prayed this would go away so it could quietly slink into the courtroom and do away with this stain.

New London County State’s Attorney Michael Regan told me late Friday the state remained convinced Amero was guilty and was prepared to again go to trial.

“I have no regrets. Things took a course that was unplanned. Unfortunately the computer wasn’t examined properly by the Norwich police,” Regan said.

“For some reason this case caught the media’s attention,” Regan said.

He’s just playing dumb. He knows exactly why this case caught media attention – shoddy police work in an area that a growing number of people know a lot about: computers. If this was some investigation where the question was interpretation of DNA evidence or the trajectory of bullets on a windy evening, Julie Amero would have been halfway through her sentence.

Instead, the police department messed up big-time in an area where a lot of people pay attention (and have been victims themselves).

Instead of owning up to their mistake and the possibility that there was an error, the State tried to shore up its ego by stretching this prosecution as long as it could.

What’s even stinkier is the fact that they just couldn’t let her go. Having kept her in limbo for 18 months, with failing health, wasn’t enough. They had to extract something – even if it were a slice of flesh.

I can understand why she accepted the offer and why her lawyer probably convinced her to take it. Get it over with. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s pretty obvious the only reason the State insisted on it is to make themselves look slightly better.

They aren’t fooling anyone.

Enjoy your evening, Julie. There’s nothing good on TV, but I suspect you don’t care.

Update: Karoli, who first brought Julie to my attention, writes indignantly about the pound of flesh the State took from her.

The last media coverage was in July.The pending case detail on the Judicial Branch website reports that her case is “on the trial list, to be scheduled” and the last court date was October 27, 2008.

So what’s the deal? Is anything happening? Does anyone know?

There seems to be an absolute dearth of information about the progress of her case. Normally, such would lead me to believe that there’s been a gag order in place, but there would at least have been coverage of the gag order. No such thing. So either the parties are being really, really secretive – or there’s no damn movement. There are only two outcomes here – as there were the first time around: dismissal of the charges or a new trial.

What’s the State waiting for? What’s her lawyer waiting for? Why is there zero action in this case? What am I missing?

It’s the digital age and more importantly, it is the social networking age. If you don’t have a MySpace or Facebook account, you’re nobody. Especially teens. Everyone has them and then some. So when middle school resource officer John Nohejl in Florida decided to set up a MySpace account so he could communicate with students in ways they do (with the blessing of the school), it seemed like a brilliant idea.

Too bad he didn’t know Julie Amero. Or remember that in the age of Chris Hansen, people are fucking idiots.

In the goofiest waste of law enforcement time we’ve seen in weeks, an on-campus police officer for a Florida middle school is facing a criminal investigation over his MySpace account. Why? It turns out one of the people on his friends list had a link on his or her profile to an internet porn site.

Or, as the St. Peterburg Times puts it, “kids could navigate from Officer John’s page on the social networking site to ‘Amateur Match Free Sex’ in just three clicks.”

You’re reading correctly. Gulf Middle School resource officer John Nohejl didn’t have porn on his MySpace profile, and he didn’t link to porn. But one of the 170-odd people on his friends list, which seems mostly populated by students at his school, had a link to a legal adult site. Now the New Port Richey Police Department and the Florida attorney general’s elite cyber crimes unit are investigating him for making adult content available to underage children.

The AG apparently thinks inadvertently doing something is the same as intentionally doing something:

Cybersafety “is the attorney general’s highest priority,” said Sandy Copes, the attorney general’s spokeswoman. “I am sure the attorney general would be extremely concerned if a member of the trusted law enforcement community was either inadvertently or directly placing students at risk to being exposed to inappropriate content.”

Yep. You’re now responsible for other people. On the interweb.

So all of you reading out there. If I link to say, CollegeHumor, YOU’RE ALL PERVERTS AND PREDATORS AND ARE CORRUPTING TEH MORALS OF A CHILD !1!1one1!11!1!!!

(Seriously, if you’re at work or if kids are around, don’t Google CollegeHumor. You have been warned. It’s not porn, but there’s adult content.)

The kicker? The school’s website itself linked to some clipart websites which linked to g4y pr0n. Thank you, Chris Hansen, for making the world a crazier place.

Well, the hearing has concluded and the Norwich Bulletin is reporting that the judge granted defense’s Motion for a New Trial. Her conviction has been set aside and she has entered proforma pleas of not guilty. No date for a further hearing has been set.

State prosecutor David Smith confirmed that further forensic examination at the state crime lab of Amero’s classroom computer revealed “some erroneous information was presented during the trial.

Amero and her defense team claimed she was the victim of pop-up ads — something that was out of her control.

Judge Strackbein said because of the possibility of inaccurate facts, Amero was “entitles to a new trial in the interest of justice.”

After the brief court appearance, a smiling Amero stood next to her attorney.

“I feel very comfortable with the decision,” Amero said.

Dow commended the state for investigating the case further.

A new court date has yet to be scheduled. Amero has reentered a not guilty plea.

If the State agrees with the defense that she should not have been convicted, then they can just drop the charges at a subsequent hearing by entering nolles. Whether that happens remains to be seen. Frankly, I can’t think of any other outcome.

The Courant has more (HT: OTS):

In setting aside the guilty verdict, [Judge] Strackbein ruled that the witness the state presented as a computer expert, a Norwich police detective, provided “erroneous” testimony about the classroom computer.

“The jury may have relied, at least in part, on that false information,” said [Judge] Strackbein.

The judge cited a forensic computer analysis conducted by the state police crime lab – conducted after the guilty verdict – to support the argument that the verdict should be set aside. She said the lab report “contradicts testimony of the state’s computer witness.”

The State would take no position on this Motion today, but did acknowledge that erroneous information about the computer was presented during trial.

Amero’s attorney, William Dow III, based today’s motion for a new trial on “evidence discovered after the verdicts and now in possession of the state and the defense.” In light of the new evidence, Dow said the jury reached inaccurate conclusions about Amero’s alleged Web surfing.

The judge is expected to rule on the Motion prior to tomorrow’s sentencing. I’ll have more as I know more.

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A possible reason for the shift in venue is an upcoming change in assignments for judges, based on introduction of a new judge. Judge Hillary Strackbein, who will be sentencing Amero, will be assigned to duties in New London.

So June 6 it is.

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Okay, yes, bad joke. No one knows why. We know that it was at the request of the state. Some people believe there to be a conspiracy. I don’t.

Although, it is getting curioser and curioser.

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Amid a flurry of meetings and growing pressure on the state’s attorney’s office, the sentencing of convicted teacher Julie Amero has been postponed until April 26.

No reason for the delay was filed with the clerk at Norwich Superior Court. State’s Attorney Michael Regan, who is now involved in the case, declined to comment. Amero’s lawyers also did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

No one knows yet why it was continued, so there’s no need to speculate. It could mean something; it could mean nothing.

Previous coverage:

• Julie Amero

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What I’m intrigued by is the apparent passion that the prosecutor displayed during closing arguments: “Boom, boom, boom” he is said to have  argued, describing the barrage of pop-ups.

Thursday is the day. Let’s see what happens.

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But what’s disturbing is that the Bulletin seems to be playing fast and loose with the facts in the case, as well as with its own history of it. 

It wrote on Sunday

Whether Amero was purposefully exploring pornographic Web sites, or was the victim of a technological assault, is irrelevant.

Oddly, though, that wasn’t irrelevant when the Bulletin expressed its opinion in its editorial of January 11, when it wrote

Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero clearly was wrong to access several pornographic Web sites on her computer at Kelly Middle School

and

“Still, she was accused and convicted of intentionally accessing several pornographic sites — not pop-up ads or windows, as she suggested.”

Almost as an afterthought the paper added then, “And she did not turn off the computer when the students saw the images.” 

Now, suddenly, the case is not about whether she deliberately accessed the porn, but about whether she did enough to “protect” the kids who were trying to see the images.

There’s more good stuff. To its credit, the NB does say that the just sentence in this case should be probation with no jail time. However, the paper expresses some happiness about the fact that Amero will never teach again.

I do not recall the last time a newspaper was so involved in a local criminal prosecution. Maybe that’s a good thing.